But, on the other hand, the company is struggling and people are losing their jobs.

So I guess the moral here is: if you want a 10 million dollar bonus, you should probably go to work for a company that isn’t loosing its a-s.

Otherwise you’re going to have to settle for what’s available – which in this case is nothing.

In this economic environment, its probably enough to just have a job. I’ve got a feeling that many Merrill employees aren’t going to be so lucky.

With the constant chatter about the big three auto makers financial bail-out , I find myself getting more ticked off with each whiny – save me from my excess – sorry I ran the company into the ground –palm up hand out – shoved in the face of the American public – it has me asking – are we living in a Democracy or what? Cause I’m not sure anymore.

Honestly, I’ve been reluctant to write something about this topic simply because I felt that I needed to research the facts in more detail. Like: Who are these company leaders? Where did they come from? What mistakes have they made? How is the economy being affected? What will happen if our lawmakers don’t bail these guys out? What will happen if they do?

But then I thought- what the heck, there is a huge DUH factor here and I don’t need to do a bunch of research to identify it.

Here are some pretty obvious “Duh’s”.

Duh factor 1. If your company is in trouble, do ya think it’s a good idea to carry on the excessive lavishness that you engaged in prior to the trouble?

Hello, private jet for safety purposes. Pul-eez .

Here’s a thought, why not spend some time in a TSA screening line and then decide whether commercial airline flight is safe enough for ya. I’m willing to bet that it is.

Duh factor 2. Nobody, and I mean nobody’s performance is worth a multi-million dollar pay check when their company is asking for government handouts.

And if you are going to make the argument that good performance should be rewarded, then it follows that poor performance should be punished.

After all, if these executives are going to claim the glory when things are going well and demand multi-million dollar salaries, then shouldn’t they also own the blame when things go awry?

Duh factor 3. As a tax payer, it ticks me off that these same exec’s who ran their company’s into the ground will keep their jobs and get to decide what happens to my hard earned tax dollars if this bail-out is approved.

As a mother, I have learned that you don’t reward bad behavior. And why is that? Because rewarding bad behavior and protecting people from their poor choices just perpetuates the behavior.

If we’re going to bail out these companies, then our lawmakers should not allow these same company exec’s who made poor choices in the past the privilege of spending my money.

As a matter of fact, if the big three exec’s had any balls at all, they would admit defeat; give their prior salaries back to the company and just go away.

Duh factor 4. Here’s another thought, why don’t we take that 50 billion dollars – give or take – and spread it among some successful well run businesses.

You know – reward the good behavior and help out some companies that are doing – oh… I don’t know – a good job. Then those healthy companies can grow and create jobs and stimulate the economy instead of maintaining a few sick losers.